Retailers suffer setback to pharmacy plans

A preliminary legal opinion delivered by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 16 December found that member states can place limits on who may operate pharmacies in the EU.

Yves Bot, an advocate-general, said that in his view German and Italian laws that prevent retail chains from operating pharmacies are justified. Bot argued that owners need to be qualified pharmacists and that the need to “protect public health” was more important than normal rules on the “freedom of establishment”.

The opinion, which serves as a form of external advice to the ECJ judges who will make the final ruling, is a setback for a number of larger European retail chains that hope to expand into the pharmacy businesses in countries where there are currently restrictions on who can own and operate pharmacies. There are restrictions in roughly half of the 27-member EU, including some of its largest members: Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Yesterday’s opinion is not binding but the ECJ, which will rule on the matter in early 2009, tend to uphold the advocate-general’s opinion in a majority of the cases.